


reprise mancando

by Rethira



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2403413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanekoma smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reprise mancando

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user [naidenka](http://naidenka.tumblr.com/)!

Sometimes the Composer leaves the UG – mostly when Megs isn’t looking. He’s not a particularly observant for the _Conductor_ , which is why Sho is going to divide him into three parts frog, one part tadpole, four parts wolf and one part background Noise. Megs doesn’t even notice the Composer’s frequency lowering, so really, who does Kitaniji Megumi think he is? Just some jumped up yoctogram, really, so it’s going to be pretty funny to squash him like one.

But anyway, the Composer leaves. And he turns into some kid too – some brat with a smart fucking mouth. He doesn’t even seem to care that Sho’s following him, and he _has_ to know because he’s the _Composer_ – he’s _e_ , the sum of the infinite series, so there’s no _way_ he can be so stupid as to not know that Sho’s following him, sure as point one-four-one follows three.

It’s kind of funny actually. He’s lowered his frequency, yeah, but he’s still able to mess with the fabric of Shibuya’s reality. Crosses the road and a car swerves around him. People walk five point six five inches further away from him than everyone else. Dogs look at him for seven point eight three nine seconds less than normal, and cats for two point four seconds longer. Every eleven miles, a long white feather will fall where the Composer was walking – not that they even go eleven miles today. Looks like Shibuya’s _god_ just wants some garbage coffee from some garbage café with a pun of a garbage name.

There’s a decal on the wall of the café, and yeah, that gives Sho maybe thirty seconds of a pause, but damn, if the Composer’s _led_ Sho all this way, then he must _want_ to be followed.

He opens the door just as someone says, “Joshua! Nice to see you again, Boss.”

The Composer’s frequency flickers. Sho grins. He wasn’t supposed to know the Composer’s _name_.

The Composer – _Joshua_ – snorts delicately and says, “I’ll have the usual, Sanae.”

The other man smiles. “Sure thing, Boss. One cuppa joe coming up.”

Joshua sniffs, and completely ignores Sho. Well, if that’s how he wants to play it.

“You stayin’ long?”

“No,” Joshua says. “I just fancied some of your coffee today, Sanae.” He smiles. “No-one else does it as well as you do.”

This Sanae person smiles and it’s disgusting how genuine he looks. Only really _good_ liars can look like that. Joshua leaves without even _looking_ in Sho’s direction, and the second he does, Sanae turns his carefully pleasant expression towards Sho and says, “And what can I get you, kiddo?”

Sho sneers. “Coffee is _garbage_ ,” he says.

That pleasant, bland expression doesn’t change one iota.

 

Hanekoma Sanae is the owner of WildKat. That’s _all_ anyone seems to know about him. It’s _disgusting_. The owner of WildKat and he makes good coffee according to everyone Sho’s asked – Sho wouldn’t know himself, because coffee is garbage, especially coffee brewed by the Composer’s-

Well, whatever Hanekoma Sanae _is_ to the Composer.

He’s _definitely_ more than just a guy who makes coffee – it would be like _pi_ being _just_ a weird thing about circles, and the very idea practically makes Sho laugh until his sides split.

No. Hanekoma Sanae is _something_. Sho just doesn’t know _what_ just yet.

 

After that first time, Hanekoma doesn’t offer Sho coffee again, but he does leave Sho a plate of donuts out and says stuff like, “I know, they’re garbage too,” or, “Lookin’ good, kid,” when Sho looks exactly the same as always. One time, when Sho is making fractals, Hanekoma pauses, points at one corner and says, “Looks pretty good, but you messed up there.” Then he _laughs_ when Sho calls him a factoring hectopascal, and says, “Pascals can’t be factored, so thanks for the compliment.”

No-one’s _ever_ \- well, maybe _some_ people get it, and Joshua probably knows what Sho’s talking about most of the time, but whenever Sho calls them a monomial they tend to look at him with an expression that suggests they’re thinking _freak_ , and ever since becoming a Reaper, Sho’s been able to confirm that that is the case.

Hanekoma just continues to smile pleasantly.

“It wasn’t a compliment, you boring monomial,” Sho replies.

Hanekoma laughs, and says, “I tend to find monomials pretty entertaining, actually, although binomials have their charms.”

“Hah! Do you even know what a polynomial _is_?” Sho asks.

He’s not expecting Hanekoma to laugh back and ask, “I think a better question is, do you?”

There’s something unpleasant in the way he says it, like a top heavy fraction.

 

WildKat is closed pretty frequently, and it only gets three point four customers on any given week anyway, so Sho is ninety eight point seven four percent certain that Hanekoma either doesn’t require basic living human necessities, or that he has some other way to support himself.

He’s leaning towards the former. Despite whole days of reconnaissance – giving up valuable Player destroying time, Sho might add – Sho has yet to witness Hanekoma arriving _or_ leaving, and the opening hours of his café follow no discernible pattern.

Of course, it’s always open when Joshua wants a coffee or whatever. He still looks like some dumb brat, and probably even old Megs wouldn’t recognise him like this, but Sho knows his Composer when he sees him.

It is such _garbage_ that they’re all being bossed around by some fucking _kid_.

It won’t be like this when _Sho’s_ the Composer. It won’t be like this at all.

He must mutter it to himself, because the next second, Hanekoma sits down across from him, that pleasant smile gone, and he says, “Let’s talk.” He does smile, but it’s not that lying bland one. This one makes Sho’s hackles raise. “I hear you want to be the Composer,” Hanekoma says, “and it just so happens that I think there’ll be an opening pretty soon.”

It’s not that easy, of course. Nothing in the world is _easy_ – Sho never even expects the world to be easy anymore. But now, _now_ he has a _chance_.

Now, he might be able to replace _e_.

 

It’s weeks before Hanekoma contacts Sho. Weeks of watching Players die, over and over again, weeks of boredom and listening to Megs’ increasingly strange orders. It’s like he’s preparing for something.

Maybe he is.

And then Sho gets a text from Hanekoma – it just says _WildKat, 3am_.

It’s mysterious _bullshit_ ; Hanekoma’s lucky that Sho likes that sort of thing. Not as much as he likes variable fractions, but still.

WildKat is closed when Sho arrives – exactly three point one four minutes late, and ugh, now Hanekoma’s thrown that off by however long it takes him to open the damn door.

“You’re late,” Hanekoma says. The smile is still in place.

“You’re garbage,” Sho replies, because it’s true. Everyone is garbage.

Hanekoma makes an odd noise and then leads Sho into the back room – all the furniture has been moved aside, and the floor made clear for some reason. There’s a pile of junk near the back of the room that catches Sho’s eye; who’d have thought garbage could look so eye-catching?

“Sit there,” Hanekoma says, pointing to the floor.

“Why should I?”

Hanekoma raises an eyebrow. Sho sits where he pointed.

“Today,” Hanekoma says, “we’re going to learn about Taboo Noise.”

 

Letting Hanekoma sit behind Sho makes Sho break out in hives – he tells Hanekoma this and Hanekoma laughs and says, “No, it doesn’t,” and his breath puffs across Sho’s bare neck as he says it – but Hanekoma insists. He has to ‘inspect the canvas,’ like Sho’s skin is just-

“Hm, I’d do it here,” he says, stroking down Sho’s spine, “but the wings would probably mess it up.”

He takes Sho’s hand instead, and it doesn’t take long for his eyes to light up – in a _true_ way, a _pure_ way, like when Sho sees a beautiful equation.

Hanekoma inks in the lines first, with black marker pen, and he tilts Sho’s hand this way and that as he draws, and if this wasn’t _necessary_ then Sho would toss him out with all the rest of the garbage.

“Come back tomorrow,” Hanekoma says, “and we can get started.”

 

Three point one four one five nine two six five- “Ow!”

“I said it would hurt,” Hanekoma says, mildly. “You _could_ change your frequency-” Sho bares his teeth in a wordless snarl and Hanekoma chuckles. “Didn’t think so.”

He inks up Sho’s hand, around his fingers, and it makes Sho hiss in pain, but he doesn’t cry out again. Hanekoma doesn’t offer conversation either, instead seemingly happy enough to work in silence. He starts to hum after a while, and it’s just distracting enough that Sho can’t go back to reciting _pi_ in his head.

“Will you _stop_?” Sho snarls.

Hanekoma does, abruptly. Stops everything, including the tattoo gun. “Well, if you’re sure,” he says, and within seconds he’s packed everything away and disappeared out of the backroom. “You’ll have to come back in a week or two to get that finished,” he calls, and doesn’t even offer Sho anything to wrap his hand up with.

 

Konishi wrinkles her nose when she sees Sho’s hand. “Did a dog bite you?” she asks.

Sho laughs in her face, and she does that annoying thing where she disappears into the shadows.

Megs doesn’t even comment on Sho’s hand, beyond, “You will still be able to perform your function for the Composer,” and as for dear old Joshua?

Dear old, stupid Joshua has _no idea_ what’s coming his way.

 

There’s hours of sitting in Hanekoma’s back room, arm painfully still, while Hanekoma slowly covers Sho’s hand in black. He _says_ it means something, and Sho thinks Hanekoma might be doing something weird with frequencies, but honestly, it just looks like a sick tattoo.

That’s what factoring hectopascals call it. _Sick tat_. The last one who said that ended up in the garbage, where he belonged. It makes Sho snigger to remember it; Hanekoma touches his shoulder and says, “Don’t move.”

Sho goes still, but only because Hanekoma probably isn’t above stabbing him with the tattoo gun if he moves. After a while, Hanekoma’s fingers start tracing something on Sho’s shoulder.

“Are you drawing _fractals_?” Sho asks, incredulously.

“Maybe,” Hanekoma replies. He laughs when Sho turns and snaps at his hand, laying the tattoo gun aside. His hand strokes down Sho’s back and it feels... _strange_. Wrong, almost, except not wrong at all. Sho’s wings appear, and Hanekoma gives an appreciative whistle. “Just stay still,” Hanekoma murmurs.

It’s weird, like an unbalanced equation. It’s weird, but Sho doesn’t think he could move even if he wanted to. Hanekoma’s saying things, and Sho can hear them, but they don’t make any sense, and there’s a drawing on the floor, a sigil, and Sho hears, clearly, “This is taboo,” and the hand on his back _moves_ and Sho’s gasping and shaking in the chair, lying on his back – when did Hanekoma move him, where did Hanekoma’s hand go – and Hanekoma’s smiling, the light glinting off his glasses, and he says, slowly, like he’s talking through molasses, “Time for your next tattoo.”

 

Later, Sho asks, “What happened?”

Hanekoma smiles, and there’s – _finally_ – a little hint of his _true_ smile curling round the edges. “Little something I’ve always wanted to try out.”

Sho makes a vaguely dissatisfied noise in his throat, and goes back to his coffee.

It turns out everyone was right. Hanekoma _does_ make good coffee.

 

Sometimes Sho wakes up in weird places. This has never been unusual, especially not since he became a Reaper. Officially, the Composer’s only meant to fuck with Players, but Sho’s been a Reaper long enough to know that that is _garbage_. Joshua plays with _everyone_ sooner or later. Players, Reapers, people still in the RG... even Noise a few times, and that had been pretty funny to watch.

But even before dying, Sho had a habit of waking up in places he didn’t remember going to sleep in. Inside lockers, on top of the fridge, under chairs and tables. A few times he even slept in trees, and on those days he had wonderful dreams about tree roots and riverbeds and brain cells.

So Sho isn’t very concerned when he wakes up in Udagawa. Not even when he has to roll out of a pile of garbage. He isn’t concerned when he wakes up draped over Hachiko, or when he wakes up half in the Shibuya river. He isn’t even concerned when he wakes up in Hanekoma’s bedroom, although that one probably doesn’t count.

He _is_ concerned when he wakes up lying on a half drawn Taboo Noise sigil, Hanekoma frowning down at him.

“No,” Hanekoma says, and when Sho next wakes up, he’s drooling in the Dead God’s Pad, and some jackass Reaper is staring down at him.

“You okay?” the Reaper asks, sucking his lollipop contemplatively. Sho’s frequency flickers, and the Reaper puts his hands in the air and says, “Whoa, sorry I asked.”

When he goes to Hanekoma’s – where else does he even go anymore? Nowhere else even matters, everywhere else is _garbage_ – there’s a strange Noise there. Silver and black, where most of the others are vibrant. It’s caged though, and shaped like some sort of lion, and that makes Sho laugh.

“Never seen one of those before,” Sho comments.

Hanekoma smiles and asks, “How do you feel?”

“Like garbage,” Sho replies, kicking the lion Noise’s cage. It snarls at him, and the noise makes him shudder all over.

“I’m not surprised,” Hanekoma murmurs.

The next time Sho wakes up, he’s draped over the stage bars at A-East and feels much better.

 

There’s a tattoo on his chest now too. Sho doesn’t really remember it, but it’s the Taboo Noise sigil, inked delicately on his flesh. If he strains, he can remember staring up at the ceiling, Hanekoma hovering over him, and this sort of dull pain, but that might just be a memory of them fucking – Hanekoma calls it _expanding your equation_ and he gets this sly sort of a smirk on his face, like Sho’s really funny to him.

Hanekoma doesn’t even mention it, but it must be important or else it wouldn’t be there. Hanekoma, despite his idle chatter when other people are around, doesn’t waste his time.

Sho starts drawing the sigil on everything. No more fractals.

 

There’s a fine art to piling up trash. Flicking its frequency first, so people on the RG can’t see it, and then each and every piece has to balance _just right_ or it all collapses until it’s just garbage again. This chair has to go here, this can has to balance there, this coil of rope has to tie here, here and here. It’s probably a little like how the Reapers work – Joshua’s perched at the top, a prissy little lamp, and he has one piece of string – Megs – wrapped around him. But that piece of string connects to a few key components – Konishi, Sho, any other up-and-coming Reapers – and those other components keep the other objects in place.

All it would take is one piece and-

_CRASH_

It all comes tumbling down.

There’s a fine art to piling up trash. But it’s much more satisfying to watch it collapse.

 

“Soon,” Hanekoma says. “Just wait another week or so.”

Sho doesn’t bother to protest. Hanekoma doesn’t listen anyway, and.... Well, it’s not like Hanekoma gets _angry_ but he starts making coffee that tastes like garbage and Sho starts to feel off.

“Might wanna keep a closer eye on Joshua,” Hanekoma continues, and he says it like it’s a suggestion and not an order.

“Whatever,” Sho snorts.

 

Hanekoma kisses like- like a perfect number. Like a solved equation. Like zero.

He kisses with no deviations. Each kiss perfectly calculated to achieve its purpose, and its purpose is to derail Sho’s thoughts, more often than not. Hanekoma laughs about it when Sho puts it that way, murmurs that if he were that good then he’d probably put Megumi out of a job.

Sho wrinkles his nose and mutters, “Megumi is garbage.”

Hanekoma runs his hand down Sho’s back and whispers, “Everything is garbage to you.”

Still, Sho asks, “Why?”

Hanekoma says, smiling his lying smile, “Shibuya cannot be allowed to stagnate,” and then he starts to paint, and maybe Hanekoma’s fucking around with the frequency again or maybe Sho’s finally seeing something worth _seeing_.

 

Joshua’s running this time, and there’s a gun in his hand. Running and laughing, like it’s a _joy_ to be chased down through the streets. Sho wouldn’t even be following if the little bastard hadn’t taken a pot-shot at him first, but now he is and this is _thrilling_.

For all of Hanekoma’s careful plans, _this_ is how it’s going to end up. _This_ is how the Composer’s going to meet his end.

Shot dead in Shibuya, if Sho has anything to say about it. Goodbye _e_.

Sho doesn’t bother shouting after Joshua, just runs, and it’s like the only noise is their feet hitting the ground, and Joshua’s irritating little titters – he turns for Udagawa, racing past the handful of people, racing past the handful of shops, and his frequency slams _down_ , so jarring it makes Sho trip before he matches it, and now there are screams as well.

And then a blare of colour – Hanekoma’s work in front of them, and Joshua doesn’t slow for a second, and some kid who doesn’t even realise they’re there. Joshua pauses for a moment, in front of the kid, and there are shots fired.

Bodies hit the ground.

The kid. Joshua smiles down at the kid, drops something on him, and Sho doesn’t follow.

 

“Next week,” Hanekoma says. “Behave this week. Next week you’ll have your opportunity.”

“Fine,” Sho grumbles, rolling his shoulders. He hasn’t seen Joshua for hours. The Reapers are gathering Players. Megs isn’t himself.

Hanekoma pats Sho’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everything’s changing.”

“Hn,” Sho replies. “Everything is _garbage_.” It feels like a dull refrain.

Hanekoma smiles.


End file.
